Serge Ibaka

What’s up Razzballers?!? I’m back and will be handling the daily recaps from Tuesday night this season. We had a total of 9 games so let’s get to it!

Kevin Love, Kyrie Irving, and LeBron James – Whenever the Rockets are in town, you know that fantasy stat lines are going to be great for both teams, with the increased pace of play. The Cavaliers were the beneficiaries of the Rockets’ matchup and all the main guys delivered. Kevin Love posted 24 points, 5 rebounds, 2 steals, and 1 block; Irving scored 32 points with 4 threes; and James nearly messed around and got another triple double, finishing with 19/13/8. They played almost as well as their costumes from James’ yearly Halloween party. Don’t forget the shoutouts to the Warriors!

J.R. Smith – Smith knocked down 5-11 from downtown to finish with 15/3/2. Iman Shumpert (8 points, 2 steals, and 2 threes) seems to after suffering a concussion from opening night, but the steals just aren’t enough to help fantasy owners, except for the deepest of leagues.

What an incredible NBA Opener for big men! Maybe the Sixers aren’t as crazy after all…? But the bigs across the league went absolute ham; they were big hams! It’s why in Supermarket Sweep the people would always go for the hams first. Why did they never go to the wine section?! Just nab the best ish there and start a party!

Myles and JV go for 30, Embiid has an epic debut, but it was Anthony Davis who takes home the best line of the openers thus far, going an absurd 50/16/5/7/4! I mean, it could literally be the best line of the season… Double rainbow, 7 steals?!, shot 17-34, and hit 16-17 FT. After taking a little flack keeping him #1 last year, Brow started the 15-16 season going 18/6/2/0/3 shooting 4-20 (420!) and 10-15 FT. Dude, apparently the Pelicans medical staff – in all of their immense glory and wisdom – should’ve taken a hammer to his ankle before last season! Hard to believe a mere 1.5 weeks ago his status for the opener was in question off a kankle, but we’re seeing the ups and downs of what it’ll be like to be a Brow owner. Especially the dread of seeing him play 41 minutes in a loss… I nabbed him in one league, and might try some preposterous sell highs. But the allure of lines like that are tough to ignore. We just all know we’re one horrific Pels medical staff decision away from this happening to him walking out of the training room. Here’s what else happened on our first major slate of NBA games of the 2016-17 Fantasy Basketball Season:

My first RCL draft is in the books! I may drop another league closer to the start of the season – we’ll see on that. [editor’s note – if you’re interested in joining an RCL league, you can take a spot in several leagues with openings here!] At any rate, I’m fairly happy with how this draft went. I had the 11th pick, so that was ugly, but I caught a break in the first round, and I don’t think I blew it too badly after that. You can be the judge though!

As we prepare for the 2016-17 Fantasy Basketball Season, I’ll be taking a look at each NBA team with their major adds and drops to see if we can pan for any surprise rotational gold. This open is especially witty for the Nuggets… We’ll be counting down from worst NBA regular season to the best, mainly because I’m still figuring out how to rank the Warriors…

Orlando Magic (35-47)

Key Acquisitions:

F Serge Ibaka

C Bismack Biyombo

F Jeff Green

G D.J. Augstin

F/C Arinze Onuaku

G C.J. Wilcox

Key Losses:

G Victor Oladipo

F Ersan Ilyasova

G Brandon Jennings

F Andrew Nicholson

C Dewayne Dedmon

C Jason Smith

G Shabazz Napier

SKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILES!

Wooooo, get this Skiles fool out of here! We get to turn the page on this franchise, and finally get some fantasy excitement going – – only to have them then hoard big men like they’re the Sixers. There’s only ONE PF and ONE C spot, Orlando!

A lot of the Magic’s turnover happened around the trade deadline last year, and some “key losses” were only in Florida for a hot, swampy minute. It’s hard to say if they really got any better or worse – losing Oladipo hurts anyone – but I’m excited to see what new frontman Frank Vogel can get out of the band. Here’s how their roster is shaping up:

50-75 always feels like that nebulous range where we get out of the sure things and start veering into the mess that is the sleeper-range, but don’t want to go too nuts for your guys. There’s just a little too much value on the table to reach for a potential superstar like Patrick Patterson! Hah, I keed, but you know what I mean.

Hopefully you’ve checked out my Top-10, Top-25 and Top-50 as we start getting into the late-middle rounds. Things are starting to get hairier in the comments too! But give me all your thoughts and quibbles you have, because I’m just one idiot that gets to pose my thoughts to the smart collective. Together as a think tank, Razzball Basketball is going to own the hoops-o-sphere! Just need to pay more attention when we play stupid Chris Liss in the Yahoo F&F Final… Ugh! Here’s the Top 75 for the 2016-17 Fantasy Basketball Season:

Ahhh, the early mid-rounds. This is where you can really start zagging when owners want you to zig, or zig when they wanna zag, or just be a total Zags homer and draft Adam Morrison for the hell of it! Stupid Jordan picks…

So here we start vaulting into some of the bolder calls, where hopefully you don’t say “stupid JB picks”… I finally start going an island with a few calls, particularly some saucy PF-types. Choo choo! “Know what I’m SAYIN’!!!” Uh oh, I am starting to go delirious with the rankings already… I feel like Russell Crowe in that forest outhouse with magazine clippings everywhere. “What did Oladipo say in Slam Magazine about playing with Westbrook?!” Enough foreplay! You can check out the Top-10 and Top-25 though some clickage right there, and here’s the Top 50 for the 2016-17 Fantasy Basketball Season:

Whew, I admittedly had a little rankings-shock after writing War & Peace with my Top-10 there. I gotta whittle this down a little bit if we’re gonna have the ranks done by September like I hope! No one wants to wait until early October to read about the 198th ranked Jeremy Lamb… Or maybe they do!

I must preface these ranks with an admission – I’m buying more and more into punting. I’m Todd Sauerbrunning it! You can pull off some pretty crazy rankings changes when you knock off some categories in BBMonster valuation. And before everyone gets all snotty with their comments, I know I’m going to bounce around using some 9-cat valuation for some guys, then take out some cats for others. Ranks can’t be a one-size fits all, they change each player you draft. It would be like ranking a white wine high with a steak recommended as the pairing, THAT’S BLASPHEMY, DAMMIT! Here’s the Top 25 for the 2016-17 Fantasy Basketball Season:

Man, crazypants Thursday night! I know what you’re all thinking… “A live reaction to the madness would be better!” Well, hopefully you downloaded and listened to our Draft Day Live Podcast! If not, listen to it while reading this if you have a fluky-good, multi-tasking mind. It’s tough for me to read while listening to a Podcast, it’s like that feeling when someone just starts shouting random numbers at you when you’re trying to count. 1-2-3-4-5 “17!” 6-7-8 “22!” 8… 8… ugh, I lost my spot! Assholes…

The first 9 picks went fairly unsurprisingly, although we did miss on virtually everything in our Mock Draft. Pretty sure I beat Slim 2-1 overall(edit – ugghhhh Slim’s right he got Zizic, we tied, ahhhhh!)! Then when the Bucks made their 10th pick… All hell broke loose! Dudes I jokedaround about as 2nd round sleepers getting picked in the lottery, Suns making baller trades, someone’s twitter getting hacked… Oh wait, that was the NFL draft. I guess it wasn’t quite THAT crazy! Here’s my analysis for each rookie’s fantasy impact, along with my grade for each team’s pick in a real-life context and my guess at where each rookie will rank in my 2016-17 redraft rankings to come out this summer:

Oh man, things are going to get saucy in the second round! After Slim and I (and most of you commenters) seemed to more-or-less agree on most of my top-10, here’s where I gotta get my defending pants on. They kinda look like waders, but they’re decked out in OKC branded colors and logos. I call them my “Dion Waiters”! BOOM! Offseason jokes are in in-season form!

While we’re all watching StanVan complain about the LeBron calls and crossing our fingers Steph is healthy enough to come back for game 3, there’s no better time to dive into the deep end of hoops rankings a good 5 months too early. Can I put Ben Simmons in the top-25 yet?! Pssshhh, thing be gettin’ crazy outside the top 10, but not dat crazy! Here’s my Way Too Early Top 25 for the 2016-17 Fantasy Basketball Season:

Follow the white Babbitt! If you had told me Luke Babbitt would be a critical add over the fantasy finals weekend, I would’ve beaten you to death with a sack full of lucky rabbit’s feet. Would that be a …lucky way to die?

No, it’s not an April Fool’s joke that Babbitt went 22/10/3/2/1 last night. No, it’s a joke he took a team-high (and an absurdly-high!) 25 shots. And no, it’s not a joke that the Pelicans won a game led by Luke Mother F Babbitt! That’s right, a guy with a last night that sounds like how Grey incorrectly pronounces “BABIP” on the Razzball Baseball Podcast is all the sudden a must-own wing over the final 3 H2H days. Such a Velveteen Babbitt! “He said it was because I know you like rabbits, and I know you like cheese…” The Pelicans have no reason not to throw (double negative police!) their scrubbiest of scrubs into the starting 5 and see what wet noodles stick on the wall, so I fully expect him to be a starter for you in most 12-team leagues or deeper on the final Sunday @BKN. Throw him in your Babbitt Stew! OK, enough rabbit puns, as Monty Python would say – “get on with it!” Oh yeah, I shoulda used a Holy Grail reference. TOO LATE NOW! Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy basketball action: